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Christians worldwide to celebrate Season of Creation

Posted Aug 22, 2016

[Anglican Alliance] Churches across the world will be marking this year’s Season of Creation with services and times of worship that celebrate God’s creation and serve as a reminder of humanity’s duty to safeguard the earth.

The season runs from Sept. 1 to Oct. 4, and Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby has called on Anglicans to join Christians worldwide and take part. In the video below he says, “The outcome of climate change is not potentially bad, it is potentially fatal, for the most fragile countries and regions on earth, and for the billions of people who live in them.”

This year, Pope Francis has declared Sept. 1 an annual World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation. His recently released video calls for a renewed awareness of the free gift of creation and asks that the month of September be a time of renewed commitment to pray and work for the protection of the environment.

Resources for worship and prayer have been produced by the Environment Task Group of the Church of England. They are available online.

The Anglican Communion Environmental Network (ACEN) also has a resource hub for the 2016 Season of Creation here.

The Rt. Rev. Nicholas Holtam, bishop of Salisbury and the Church of England’s lead bishop on the environment, has celebrated the resources. He said: “Celebrating Creationtide marks a shift in the Christian understanding of our relationship to creation under God. The consequences of teaching over recent centuries that humanity has been given domination over creation are clear in the complex environmental crisis we now face. It is important that Christians rediscover older traditions of a godly relationship of humanity to the wider created order.”